MOOSE JAW — City hall issued nearly 40 more building permits by the end of this year’s third quarter than in 2023, but the permits’ total value was roughly two-thirds less than last year’s.
The city granted 62 building permits worth $4,927,125 between July 1 and Sept. 30, bringing the total year-to-date (YTD) number of permits to 161 and the total value to $22,840,295, according to a Q3 report presented during the recent city council meeting.
In comparison, in Q3 2023, city hall issued 56 building permits worth $58,184,546, while YTD, it had granted 125 total permits worth $71,230,996.
Therefore, while the municipality granted 36 more total building permits this year than last year, their value was 67 per cent less — a drop of $48,390,701.
Meanwhile, in Q3 2022, the city issued 69 permits worth $12,725,555, and in Q3 2021, it granted 58 permits worth $13,787,147.
Also, for 2022 YTD, the municipality had granted 185 permits worth $85,115,870, and for 2021 YTD, it issued 180 permits worth $55,234,835.
During the meeting, Coun. Heather Eby inquired about the value of the building permits issued this year and why they were so much lower than last year, even though more permits had been distributed overall.
City manager Maryse Carmichael replied that city hall has granted more permits for residential projects than for commercial initiatives, which makes a big difference in the value.
The Q3 2024 report showed that city hall issued 36 residential permits compared to six industrial/commercial permits, while in Q3 2023, those numbers were 30 and 11, respectively, in Q3 2022, those numbers were 29 and 14, respectively, and in Q3 2021, those numbers were 29 and seven, respectively.
Derek Blais, director of community services, pointed out that it has been a record year for residential permits, although such permits take up a large amount of employees’ time to complete and don’t generate much revenue. Conversely, years with higher revenues were due to more permits for commercial, industrial or institutional projects.
“It’s something we are going to look at through our rates and fees review in 2025,” he added. “We are not really recovering our costs on these residential ones, so it’s something that we’re going to have … look at some creative ways of charging out those permits so we are recovering our costs.”
Phone services
The Q3 report indicated that the IT department plans to take over the management of all mobile devices for the city, including purchasing such devices and handling them for all departments.
“Standardizing phone models, phone plans and (having) one large data pool can save the city a significant amount of money related to mobile device management,” the report said.
Saving “a significant amount of money” caught the eye of Mayor James Murdock, who wondered how much money city administration thought it could save with this approach.
Carmichael replied that this is a new initiative to combine all telecommunications budgets into one, while it makes sense to have all contracts “under one umbrella” and the ability to control what upgrades occur and when.
“I gave a target of a reduction of $40,000 in our budget to the director of IT for 2025,” she added.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Dec. 16.
